Nyarugenge: Youth benefit from photography, storytelling training at Club Rafiki-Nyamirambo

By Elias Hakizimana.

Under resourced Youth from Nyarugenge District in Kigali City who are acquiring the skills in photography and story-telling in a new class dubbed ‘Digital Innovation Chamber’ at Club Rafiki-Nyamirambo expect a brighter future through job creation and employment by the firms in multi-media industry.

The idea of skilling these young boys and girls was initiated by ‘PHOTO START’, an organization that uses photography, life skills and storytelling to teach under resourced young people around the globe.

The youth-friendly center, Club Rafiki-Nyamirambo, currently strives to improve the health and wellbeing outcomes for young people caught in a cycle of extreme poverty, lack of safe spaces and activities after school and high rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, equipping them with the skills in various perspectives, such as games and competitions, job creation, fashion and design among others.

Speaking to The Inspirer, Omar Tony Nsengumuremyi, the coordinator of Club Rafiki Nyamirambo said that the new class will help to address the issue of unemployment, which is still a burden for the nation.

“We have got an opportunity to collaborate with PHOTO START’ to continue helping our young people cope with the new era of job creation and innovation to eradicate unemployment. We believe that the three-month courses in photography and storytelling will leave both our girls and boys with an important package of skills to be job creators or to compete at the labour market within the multi-media industry,” Nsengumuremyi said.

Gillian Njeri, a trainer with PHOTO START says that the initiative operates in eight (8) countries globally, and have taught over 1,000 beneficiaries with the support of 49 partners. In Africa, the initiative operates in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and South-Africa.

“We started in March 2016, as the world is moving to become digital, we have thought of the youth who are under-resourced and who do not have an opportunity to get jobs, and we help those from high schools who did not get the chance to continue to Universities, we give them these classes so that they can get the skills, and once certified, they can either teach it, they can create jobs for other people, or they can get jobs using the certificates that they get,” Njeri explains.

Through the skills at the digital innovation class, beneficiaries learn life skills, computer skills, digital content creation and social media platforms. They have two hours-concentration in class for theories and two hours outside for practices in photography over three months. The first cycle that started on August, 16 will end on November 16, 2022.

Beneficiaries speak out

Madjidu NZABONIMPA, 22, a young boy from Nyamirambo who currently practice sports at Club Rafiki Nyamirambo has stopped his schooling in 2018 after completing the Ordinary level. He says he was enthusiast with photography, but had no financial capacity to learn it. “I learnt about this opportunity when I was at the center for some games, now, since I started, the good news is that some people in the industry started contacting me to give me jobs,” he says.

Dorcas UWERA, another beneficiary says that she did not have basic skills about photography, but was curious to know more about it. “I liked photography, but, unfortunately I did not have capacity to help myself learning it, it became an opportunity for me to be aware of this class. Storytelling skills coupled with photography will help me to adapt to the labour market.” She says.

Desire Rudahunga Nzitunga, a young man from Nyarugenge who is currently a trainer in ‘Akazi kanoze’ and guitar teacher at Club Rafiki says that he chose to learn photography in this class because it is an added value to his knowledge. “Photography is vital for the life skills, here, we learn different techniques of photo shooting, and as long as the media sector is being developed, these skills can help us to tape into the labour industry,” He says.

The three-month training is expected to leave 17 young boys and girls equipped with necessary knowledge and skills to produce professional photography and multimedia content that will enable them to join the labour industry.

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